Machine Dreams
by Chris St Thomas
Summary: Dreams AU parallels Crusader AU. CHAP 4 CAMERON WAKES UP. I woke up in a robotics lab. My face felt all wrong because it had no feeling. I wanted to scream but I had no lungs or vocal cords. I wanted to cry but I had no tear ducts. I reached for you..
1. The Cookout

Disclaimer: Many thanks to all those who have made the Terminator Saga such a rich and interesting playground of the mind, especially for letting us play with all their wonderful toys and not fileing any lawsuits. Right James? Right Andrew?

Author's Note: Dreams AU runs parallel to Crusader AU. But dreams being what they are in Terminator stories, they probably happen out of sequence with realilty. Sometimes. Chapter One The Cookout formerly appeared as Chapter Ten Dreams of "Capeless Crusader" It didn't fit there. It fits here.

The Cookout

[Picks up a few hours after Ep 5 ends.

It was a sunny afternoon. The angle of the sun indicated spring. I looked around the back yard. It was huge. There was a swimming pool where an older kid was having a splash war with the younger ones.

On the other side of the yard was a volleyball net. I saw my mom and Charley Dixon playing volley ball with a black man and his wife. The black couple had the serve and the man dropped back to take his serve. I looked at his face and realized it was Miles Dyson. I looked back toward the patio and saw Andy Goode flipping burgers on a barbecue grill.

I turned around and looked at my face in the plate glass window that formed the back of Miles Dyson's house. I looked a bit older than I actually was. I looked about twenty, like a confident college student, not the confused high school sophomore my memories told me I was.

"Hey, John, are you in there, man?" a smart well mannered young black man tapped me on the shoulder. He was tall, taller than Miles. I realized this was Danny, Miles and Cicely's son. The young kid who'd raced remote control cars around the house a life time ago when Mom and I and the big guy with Austrian accent, that I had called Uncle Bob, showed up and shattered their world. "John, man, I crashed my remote control airplane. Help me put it back together. You've always been better at this than me."

As Danny led me out to where his plane crashed, we passed the volleyball game. I overheard the conversation. Miles was asking Charley how his preparation was going for his State Medical Boards. Charley and Mom said it was going great. Cicely, Miles' wife, joked that soon Miles and Andy wouldn't be the only ones in our group to be called Doctor.

Danny and I started putting the airplane back together. Somehow my hands knew what to do, even though I didn't think I remembered how to put it together. Danny and I chatted about how his high school basketball team was doing. Not tall enough to play center or forward, Danny had to fight to get minutes on the court as a second string varsity guard.

He asked me how my cross country running club was doing. I had always been a runner, just not the kind he was talking about. I heard myself answer that the younger runners were developing well, that we had a "by" this weekend and that we were competing against Cal-Berkley and USC next weekend. He asked if we were still calling ourselves the Resistance. I just smiled.

I helped Danny get the plane up into the air and watched him maneuver it around with the dual joy sticks on the radio controller. I glanced back over at the patio. Andy had gone inside to get the door. Danny's plane spiraled up, and up and up. Danny evidently was going to try another power dive.

"Hey, John," Andy stuck is head out the patio door, "come back over here. I want you to meet someone."

I started back over toward the patio and called back to Danny, "If you can't pull out of this dive, you put it back together by yourself this time."

He smiled effortlessly, without a care in the world. "Sure, John, whatever you say."

I looked around the back yard again counting heads, someone was missing: The Dysons, the Dixons, the Dyson and Dixon kids playing in the pool, Andy, hmmm; I couldn't place who it might be. I made my way inside and there she was. She stood in the doorway holding hands with Andy in that almost intimate way that new couples do. She had her back turned to me holding out a car remote. Andy began to introduce her as a new Ph.D. candidate joining our project at UCLA; he'd met her at a computer chess competition last fall and stolen her away from USC's program. Then she saw me, screamed my name, ran over, hugged me and planted a kiss on my cheek.

I heard Andy say, "What is this, dude, I get my Ph.D. first, so now you compete with me over girls?"

"It's not like that," I said.

She added, "Yeah, don't worry, Andy! John and I were best friends in another life."

She put her head on my shoulder and I put one arm around her back. We sighed each other's names and I said, "Thank Heaven you're here."

"John. Hey, John, are you in there, man?"

I opened my eyes and pushed my chest up off the kitchen table. I looked around. This world seemed darker and drearier than where I had just been. "Yeah, must have been a dream." I said.

Charley was wearing his Paramedic's uniform. He extended a hand to help me up from my chair. Cameron hovered in the background, looking nervous and protective.

My mother came out of the back and gave a thumbs-up sign. Charley spoke to me again. "John, we saved your uncle. But you gave a lot of blood to help get him stabilized. I need to rest up for me over the weekend okay? You should be okay for school on Monday." Charley passed me off to Cameron and made a hand sign to take me back to my room. My mother came over and he told her how to care for both me and Derek. She smiled and listened attentively as if she didn't already know.

Cameron took me back to my room. I laid down to go back to sleep. I could hear Mom and Charley taking their conversation outside. Cameron sat on my bed with me and I fell back to sleep holding her hand.


	2. The Girl Who Wasnt There

Disclaimer: Thanks to James Cameron, Andrew Vanja, Johnathan Mostow, Schwarzenegger, Hamiltorm, and all others who have made the Terminator Saga such a wonderful playground for the mind. Especially for letting us play with all the wonderful toys. And Even more so, for not fileing any lawsuits. Right James? Right Andrew? Right Summer?

A/N --Dreams AU runs parallel to Crusader AU. And dreams being what they are in Terminator stories, sometimes they happen out of sequence with reality. Sometimes.

The Monday after the barbecue seemed to drag by for John, at least until lunch.

He woke early to take his running club through their workouts. The UCLA Resistance had its work cut out for it, competing against USC and UC-Berkley that next coming weekend. They were NCAA Division One schools. And John's club? They were just a scrappy band of runners.

John made it to his 8:00 am class, Theory of Artificial Intelligence Design on time. Then at 9:00 he covered a sophomore level computer programming lecture for Miles, or Dr. Dyson, as John called him on campus. Miles' duties at Cyberdyne occasionally prevented him from making his lower division classes. But it was routine for full Professors to have their graduate students cover their lower division classes from time to time. Teaching that class was the easiest part of his day. John could teach that programming class in his sleep.

John had one more class that day and then he headed over to the Advanced AI and Robotics Laboratory or the Android Shop as he called it. Miles, Andy Goode, himself and a few other hand picked Post Docs and Ph.D. candidates were developing a human emulation AI, an android. Miles ran the whole project. Andy and John were working on the code and the processor design. The others were mainly robotics and biomechanics geeks who designed the hardware. Eventually the team would have to bring in some medical people to design the skin and the organic components, but that was a ways off.

Although, whenever he took the time check up on the breakthroughs in battlefield reconstructive medicine brought on by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he reflected that they'd probably have workable synthetic skin available before they cracked the AI part. The team was trying to combine learning abilities, physical control and personality emulator into a single processor cluster. John wasn't sure they could do that. He thought the android would probably need two processor clusters.

John walked into the Android Shop with Philly Cheesesteaks from Johnny Rockets. Theirs were better than Subway but not as good as Texadelphia. If Andy didn't want his, John would eat it for dinner.

Andy looked up from his terminal, "You're in early, John."

John set the Cheesesteaks down on the table next to his work station. "Yeah, brah, I wanted to make sure you and I were okay. I know we left things a little awkward after the cookout at Miles and Cicely's place." He grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, extending one toward Andy who nodded. John lobbed it gently across the lab. Both them felt acutely awaret that a stray bottle of water could shatter the experimental processors. But each was completely confident in the other. Of course they would never, ever toss the water if Dr. Dyson or the other team members were present. At least if anyone was looking

Andy caught his water and walked over to John's table, "How's that?"

John offered Andy the Cheesesteak with sauteed mushrooms but no sauteed green peppers and onions. "Well with your girl, Dude." He kept the one with sauteed mushrooms, onions and peppers for himself. Green peppers and onions didn't sit well with Andy

Andy had a look of careful consideration like he was weighing his response carefully, so John just pressed on, "She and I were best friends in high school, but I haven't seen her since my Junior year."

Andy chewed his bite of sandwich, "I didn't bring a girl to the cookout."

John set his food down. "You're kidding, right? You were half done with cooking the burgers; you took a call on your cell phone; then you went inside yelled for me. I came in and she ran over and planted one on my cheek."

Andy sipped his water and then chewed another bite thoughtfully. "You're Dreaming again; aren't you?" He actually pronounced the capital 'D.'

John considered for a moment. "Yeah, man, I guess so." He ate some more. Drank some more.

Andy commented, "This hasn't happened since you were an undergrad, has it?"

John replied, "No. And I could usually keep it separate from reality, because there always an Android with me. The recurring Nightmares in middle school had that big, brown-haired guy with shotguns and an Austrian accent. The whole series of dreams from High School always had me paired up with that gorgeous, raven haired babe, who was way better looking than any girl who would hang out with me back then."

Andy chewed some more. This was a good cheesesteak. But not as good as Texadelphia. "Yeah, I remember reading your stories before Dr. Dyson found us both and brought us into this project. The way you wrote her, she was like Aeon Flux, Wonder Woman or Xena the Warrior Princess."

"Yup." John smiled wanly and looked of into the distance. "She was quit the fighter, but she was more like my personal Trinity, you know, from The Matrix movies?"

Andy asked, "Was this most recent Dream just as real, just as lucid as the ones from before?"

John took another bite and thought through the dream and his memories of the cookout. "Yeah, it was just like the cook out, right down to Danny crashing his remote control airplane and the volleyball match between Mom and Dad and they Dysons."

Andy looked critically at John over his cheesesteak. "Except for the girl that I didn't bring."

John answered with his mouth full, "Right. Except for her."

Andy returned to the thought about the stories John had written before, "You were always cagy on the details about your high school dream girl, but I get the impression that she's somehow the guiding inspiration behind this whole project."

In for a penny, in for a pound, John pressed on and began to open up to his friend. "Yeah, I don't talk about that much. I'm not sure what to think of it myself. But it's brought us this far." John gestured to the lab, the whole project, "We're going to change the world Andy. You, me, Miles, the team. We're going to revolutionize life on planet earth. Mankind will never be alone again. We'll always have our Android friends, allies, protectors."

Andy looked like he might have had a tear in his eye. Or pepper. There wasn't any dust in here. "You sound like an Isaac Asimov story when you talk like that."

John continued, "A guy can dream; can't he?"

Andy figured he should make a serious suggestion here. The project was at another critical phase. We couldn't have John going off the rails. No one else had his finesse with the code. "Yeah, but maybe you should start keeping a daily written journal of what really happens, so you can review it every morning and sort the facts from the Dreams." Andy finished his sandwich, threw away the wrapper and washed his hands.

"No kidding;" John's voice had a touch of sarcasm. "That is a very good idea."

Andy returned to his workbench."I'm serious; you don't want to end up in Atascadero State Hospital, like your mom."

"That wasn't real." John said around his last bite of cheesesteak. "That was in the Junior High Nightmares." Then he two threw away his trash and washed his hands and face.

Andy replied crossing back from the sink, "I know, just testing."

They were quite for a while, each working his own separate projects. Andy looked like he was writing code. John was working on processor design modifications Miles had asked for. Then Andy looked up at John and posed a question. "All those stories, you wrote back in the day, the ones about the boy detective and his android girl-partner, those weren't just inspired by Isaac Asimov's Bailey and Olivaw novels were they?"

John

"Which stories are you talking about?"

Andy

"Oh, come on, John, you know the ones: Time Jump, New Identities, The Case of the Falling Girl, Heavy Metal, The Case of the Three-Eyed Man, Dungeons and Dragons, The Demon Hand, the Beginning and Ending ones that are named for obscure songs by the Smashing Pumpkins, and all the rest of them."

John

"Yeah, they were my dream therapy. I wrote all those stories to keep track of what was in Dreams and what was real, because even then there was overlap."

Andy

"That cheerleader did jump at your school, didn't she. What was her name?"

John

"Dana Griffith. I'll never forget her."

Andy

"Did you really get that teacher fired?"

John

"Maybe. All I know is that the Griffiths and a lot of other families got justice when he was put away."

Other members of the team were entering the lab, so Andy walked over to John's area, "I always thought The Case of the Three-Eyed Man was a little too close for comfort to what really happened when Greek 2.0 got stolen from the Chess Championship. When I read the part about Alvin Green lying on the floor with Turk 2.0 stolen and a bullet in his head and later thought about how I had been lying on the floor, out cold with a lump on my head in reality, I felt like I was walking over my own grave. "

John nodded knowingly. How many times had he felt like he was dreaming the life he could have lived if things had somehow been different? They worked on through the rest of the afternoon, comparing notes and conferring with each other and other members of the team, but neither spoke of the Dreams again.


	3. Keeping A Vow

Keeping a Vow

I tossed and turned in bed that night, but sleep finally came.

I walked down corridors that looked like high school hallways, but without lockers. I must be at some college. Looking at the bulletin boards and Go Team banners, I quickly concluded that I must be at UCLA. One spirit poster in particular caught my eye, The UCLA Resistance running club was competing against USC and Cal-Berkley in a cross country meet the next weekend. The coach standing in the team photo looked like the face I had seen when I looked at my own reflection in Miles's window in the cookout dream the other night.

I looked around expecting to see floating road signs and hear Rod Serling's voice proclaim that I was entering the Twilight Zone. No such luck. I turned into a workshop and noted the title plate on the door Advanced AI and Robotics Laboratory. I looked around and saw partially assembled robotic skeletons that looked a cross between bionic replacement parts for wounded soldiers and Terminator endoskeletons. My stomach turned. I glanced across at the white boards full of equations. I wondered if Asimov's Three Laws were in there anywhere. Then the board shifted and I started to see images of Cameron and me floating across there.

I saw my older self eating a Philly cheesesteak at a table next to his workbench. He appeared to have several processors in various states of construction and repair. Older me set down his cheesesteak and turned to me, "Hey, Brah, I have been waiting for this dream, but you're early."

I screamed at him, "What in the name of Turing are you doing in here!!? You're building the very thing Mom and I have dedicated our lives to destroying."

College John set down his cheesesteak, and held up his hands palms out, "No, you don't get it. I'm building your salvation here."

Without crossing the room I was holding one of the processor over my head poised to smashe it on the floor, "You're right, I don't; so help me understand it." I lowered the processor and walked over to set it down on the workbench.

College John picked the processor up ginegerly and examined it, "Have patience, Brah, good things to come to those work relentlessly. Is Cameron still with you?"

I could feel myself relax as I thought of Cameron. "Yeah, it's only been about three months now, but she's different from the Terminators I've seen before. Sometimes she seems like one of the high functioning autistic kids, almost normal yet detached, other times, it's like she's my best pal and then sometimes she goes all robotic..."

College John set the processor back down and tinkered with a few lines of code on his screen, "So, you've got it all ahead of you then."

My smile vanished and I was incredulous again, "I've got what ahead of me? Leading an Army!? Saving the world that it looks like you're trying to destroy!?"

"Bailey and Olivaw, Ltd: You and Cameron's private detective/ computer security biz. Your Grand Adventure, that's what." My older self gestured expansively. "There are certain key facts that you aren't privy to yet. In a little over a year and a half you'll understand."

The images on the white boards turned darker. They became scenes of future battle pitting automated tanks, flying hunter-killer drones and gleaming metal endoskeletons against my ragtag Resistance Army, my scrappy band of Rebels. "You're hacking me off, Dude! I can't believe you're me."

"Just tell me this, do you like the Machine-Girl?" College John must have been paying attention in Psychology class as well Robotics, he sure had my number in terms of calmingme down.

I replied, "Yeah. I'm starting to. When she was fighting the T-888 on the street behind the wrecked prison truck, and it looked like it was getting the best of her," scenes of the fight between Cameron and Terminator began to play out across the white boards. "I wanted to run up there and help her." I pointed over to a scene playing out on the white board, "Look up there on the whiteboard, there's where Mom and Uncle Derek tried to wrestle me into the Jeep, but I wouldn't let them leave without her. She finally pinned it down and then I helped her destroy its CPU." The rest of the battle played itself out across the walls.

College John took a long pull on a bottle of V8 Splash Blueberry flavor, "Mmmm…I remember that. What I wouldn't give for one more dream of her."

Suddenly I was intreagued, "What do you mean?"

Older me stepped away from the computer terminal back to the table and resumed muching on the cheesesteak. "I've dreamed half of your life: from The Middle School Nightmares with the big Austrian and the shape shifting liquid metal guy," he talked around his food, "to all your high school adventures with Cameron. I believe that it's all real. You, me, the Terminators, Skynet, and my efforts here with Miles and Andy to construct a human emulation AI Android." He pointed to photos of the development team on one of the bulletin boards. "Why do you think I call my running club the Resistance?

I shrugged, "I figured it was some kind of electrical engineering joke."

College John leaned toward me and spoke in a stage whisper, "Yeah, so does everyone else, and I let them think that, too, because I don't want to end up in Atascadero State Hospital like your mom. But really, it's an homage to your Army days."

Andy alive, Miles alive, this was a little overwhelming. I remembered the Cookout Dream, but that had just been a dream right? My subconscious living out some kind of whishfulfillment, right? "What do you mean it's all real? How can that be? I know what happened in my life and Miles Dyson and Andy Goode are dead."

College John continued eating and talking "Did you ever see a movie called _Déjà Vu_… Denzel, Ridley Scott, Jerry Brukheimer?"

I thought for a moment. Yeah, that movie had been a trip, a roller coaster, a ride at Disney; I watched it forty-two times on Blue-Ray, "Yeah, the cop investigating a girl's murder and a bombing goes back in time and prevents both. That guy from the third Batman movie, the one who played Jim Morrison in _The Doors_, he was in it, too, and a woman who looked like Halle Berry."

College John offered half of his sandwich and a bottle of water. "Right. Remember the tech-geeks talking about branching multiple universe theory?" I took the water. But somehow I never eat in dreams.

The water felt refreshing, "You mean like those _Star Trek_ Mirror Universe episodes or _Back to the Future 2_?"

College John replied, "Exactly. Both of our worlds are real."

I just let that whole train of thought settle into my brain for a few moments. "Let me ask you a question."

College John picked his sandwich back up and took another bite, "Okay, make it quick. I think Andy Goode is about to walk in that door behind you any moment now, and I don't know what would happen if he saw you here."

I've got several emotions competing, hope, regret, fear, longing, "So, you, Miles, Andy, Charley, Mom, Cicely, Danny, you're all pals?"

College John began, "Best of friends, best of colleagues," then he paused for a moment. He looked like he wanted to say more, but couldn't decide how to phrase it. So, instead he said, "Remember: what we're working on here can be the salvation of your world. Make sure you come back and see me after your Junior year of high school. You'll need my help then."

I turned and headed for the door, but College John called to me, "Hey, Brah, come back a minute." I shuffled back over to his work station. He gave me a hug and then held me out at arms length with one hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. His expression was almost paternal, like the look of a favorite uncle, "I'm sorry about your dad, and it's got to be hell what your mom put you through telling that you're going to grow up to be some kind of Messiah."

He took a breath and continued, "Charley Dixon and Sarah and I are a real family here, have been as long as I remember. I even have a brother and sister, plus Miles and Cicely's kids are like family, too.

"I can't change your life, but you can come visit mine any time you want. Just dream your way on over here. I've seen your life, you should get the chance to spend some time in mine. And don't be too critical with that uncle of yours, future-you will make him a Battalion Commander for good reasons." He stepped back just a bit and smiled like he was proud of me.

I turned half way back toward the doors and then looked back, "Do I really do it, lead the Resistance to victory and rebuild the world?"

"Count on it, Brah. I believe in you all the way. Besides, I'm living proof and this whole project here is a testament to your life."

As I walked out the double doors of the lab, I thought I heard the older John say, "I'm keeping your vow, Brah. I'm keeping your vow." I wondered what he meant as I faded into the deepest most restful sleep I'd enjoyed since I don't even recall when.


	4. cameron wakes up

Cameron's Dreams

A loud thumping crunch awoke me from a sound sleep. I bolted up and pulled a shotgun from under my bed. Cameron should be on patrol out here. Nothing should make it in. Unless she's off on another one of her solo missions.

My feet slid into shoes waiting next to my bed and I walked very quietly to my door. I listened. I listened for breathing. For the whirring sound that Terminators make when they move (normally it's covered up by ambient noise, but on a still, clear night, sometimes I've heard it.) For the sound of air moving around something standing next to my door.

Nothing.

I put my weapon up in a ready position, and pulled the door so it would open slowly by itself. As it drifted open, I peered around the door jamb and moved out into the hall. Look up, down, left, right…Nothing. I moved silently down the hall toward the kitchen and saw Cameron picking herself up out of the wreckage of the kitchen table.

"I had a dream," she said.

I literally didn't hear her say that. I mean the words went into my mind which promptly filed them in the rubbish bin with a note that read _impossible._ I continued to the back door turning this way and that, always pointing my weapon along my line of sight. Then I turned and scanned the room. Finally, I called, "Clear." Then I set the weapon down and asked, "Are you okay? What happened?"

She walked over to me with lithe grace, and an odd expression on her face. It was one that I knew meant she was troubled. Gently she took my right hand in hers. She stood on tiptoes and spoke very softly into my ear. "Will you hold me?" she asked as she slowly wrapped her left arm around me in an embrace, that was at once tender and decidedly non-sensual. She brought our hands up slowly between us.

"Of course." I put my left arm around her back with my left hand on her shoulder blade and brought her close. Against my bare chest, I could tell that she was wearing one of my t-shirts and not much else up top. I took a deep breath and willed myself calm. With an act of my will, I forced the blood to move above my waist back to my head, the one I needed to think with and back to my heart, that I needed to feel with. Comfort. I said that word to myself slowly and loudly in my mind, three times.

I whispered to her, "I'm here for you. You know that, right?"

We just stood there for a while. I thought I felt her lips form the word yes. And then she released the embrace and led me over to the couch. "I had a dream," said simply. We sat, with her on my left side. She still held my hand. She leaned back across my torso, pulling my right arm around her and placed her head gently against my right shoulder.  
I wrapped my left arm around her abdomen and placed my left hand on her right hip. Part of my mind wondered where her underwear were under the sweat pants. I deliberately took that thought and set aside, but not in the rubbish bin. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Mmm, hmm" she said. Then she sat quietly. She seemed to be thinking back through the dream, trying to understand it.

"We were in the second LA Time Lab. I was returning to the future, to 2027. You were asking me to stay. I was showing you how to program a Time Jump, going over the last information you needed to continue the Resistance before I left. Then everything went silent. I could see you mouthing words. A tear meandered down your cheek and you dropped to one knee as the blue time bubble swallowed me up.

"The transition lasted longer than it should have. I don't know how I knew that. I was aware that there was no future for me to go back to. Somehow, in the new 2027, I hadn't been built, so I couldn't go there.

"I woke up in a research lab. I opened really primitive eyes and my vision looked like early 1970s ear, low-def, black and white television. I looked around and saw computer terminals and work benches with partially constructed processors. I saw partially assembled mechanical skeletons that looked like a cross between radically advanced bionic replacement limbs and terminator endoskeletons.

"And then I looked down at myself and saw that I was missing, except for my head, my hair and my right arm. The skin on my face didn't feel right, because it didn't feel. Same for my arm, which now that I looked at it was just a bionic replacement arm with skin only on the hand. I felt really simple and crude sensations from the hand.

Then I turned my head to scan the room for you. I saw Andy Goode (alive and well, eager, optimistic and hopeful), Miles Dyson (alive and well, calm, assured and confident). Not seeing you, I started to freak out. My eyes went wide and I tried to move my facial muscles, but I didn't have any. Then I listened. I heard your breathing behind me and I calmed down. I realized my pulse rate hadn't risen or fallen because I didn't have a heart. I tried to breathe, but I couldn't because I had no lungs. 'John,' I tried to say, reaching my one arm out for you. It sounded more like 'Zhoawn.'

"Miles said, 'Let's shut the prototype down, guys.'

My hand found yours the way it always does. And you took it, held it just like you do here.

'Maybe this was too soon.' Miles continued gently, a look of sadness on his face.

My hand tightened in yours. My lips moved but I couldn't get any sound out of them because I had neither lungs nor vocal cords. The mind told me I had a speech synthesizer, but I couldn't remember how to use it. Involuntarily, my fingers tightened in your hand and I pulled my self closer to you. Feeling an awful shudder in my head and arm, I looked downward and realized that below my neck was a slender pole and castors that rolled. I pulled my shoulder against your chest. I was mouthing no. I was squeezing "no" in Morse code into your hand.

"As awful as the existence in that primitive, amputated body felt, it was preferable to nothingness. I had no idea how to save myself. And I was afraid that if I was shut down, my mind would disappear. I felt fear, fear of death. I pulled myself closer to you and you moved my right hand into your left. In the corner of my vision I saw you slowly run your right hand up my arm, up my neck, to touch my face. I couldn't feel it but I could see it, barely.

"You said, 'No, don't, and then you looked over at something that I hadn't noticed before. I imagined your jaw dropping open because you didn't say anything else. You just lifted you left hand and pointed. I swiveled my head around to follow you hand and saw four more people: Sarah, beaming at you with pride; a bored looking young man; a twenty-something woman I had never seen before but knew her name was Catherine Brewster, took the whole experience in and looked at you in a way that said she was re-evaluating your place in her future; A grey haired man in Air Force Dress uniform was already staring at the monitor with look of profound amazement on his face. And then I finally saw it: my consciousness model, dozens of graphs representing all my mental processes.

"I saw the stars of a Major General on the blue uniform and read the name plate as Brewster and he said, 'Good Heavens, John some of those process graphs look like the AIs my research people have been working on for me to defend the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System against hackers and computer attacks.'

"Then you finally found your voice, 'Quick somebody, Miles, Andy, General anyone, how many terabytes to store a personality? 10? 100?'

"It was Kate who answered, '500 should do it but get 1000 to be safe.'

"You said, 'Do it. Danny, Thomas go grab us ten 100 terabyte hard drives, connect them in parallel and hook them into Cameron's processor.'

"I saw an African-American teenager and white-coated student dash off out of view. Then the bored guy with Kate, asked, "What do we need those for."

"So that she can save herself," you said

Kate turned to him and clarified, "So that Cameron, here, can store a copy of all the code and the processes that are running now."

Cameron, my Cameron, the one sitting on the couch and reclined across my chest paused and looked into my face with wonder in her eyes.

I smoothed her hair with my free hand. "That sounds like a nightmare."

"No, the ending redeemed it." Tears streaked her face. "You walked around into my field of view and looked into my visual receptors (calling them eyes would give them too much credit). You looked older, (22 maybe?) wiser, more kind/ compassionate, and the lines in your face betrayed none of the worry and weight of impending doom that you've lived with here since you were small. Looking into my cameras, your expression said that some how you recognized me, knew me, remembered me. I could tell that you somehow remembered everything about me, us, all our adventures, all our Missions, everything we have shared and will share. You mouthed, "I'm keeping his vow, Cameron."

"I built you myself, didn't I," I thought out loud in a quiet, distant, awestruck tone. Silently I wondered how many more iterations the time stream would go through before we arrived in that timeline. Only one or two I hoped. I felt Cameron's hand squeeze mine. I said to her, "That must have been quite a shock, going from your full body with its full range of senses and sensations down to just a head and an arm." I smoothed Cameron's hair gently, reassuringly. "What happened next?"

"I crashed into the table and woke up." She was quiet for a few moments. "I was afraid in the dream. I'm afraid now."

"Oh?" I just sat there and held her and tried to project comfort.

"I've never felt fear before. I've been concerned from time to time facing unknown threats or threats that might have been more powerful than me or than us. But I have never felt fear before."

"It's okay." I felt her neck. Her pulse was elevated. "We can talk about it. Or we can just sit here. You'll calm down."

"But…"

"Fear is like pain. It's warning message that your body gives to your mind to tell you to pay attention to what's going on around you and to think very carefully about what you do next." No, I'm not actually that great of a great philosopher. Harry Dresden is the philosopher, or actually Jim Butcher who writes the Dresden Files books. "What scared you?"

"Being in that ancient robot body and like you and the human girl said, facing inactivation without being able to save my mind to a storage medium."

"Yeah. No doubt. That would freak me out, too." We were quite some more. Then I asked her, "If you found yourself in a developmental robot body like that, do you think I would leave you in it for long?"

"No," she looked up into my face, "you and Miles and the team were already building the next generation of processor and body. You would have upgraded me." As she spoke her heart rate slowed.

"And the storage issue….?" I prompted, looking up and away slightly.

"No, that wasn't it. I was afraid to die." She said quietly yet emphatically.

"Cameron, that just means you're alive." I moved a little to the side and sat up some so that I could really look into her eyes, "Everyone who's alive fears death, if only because it's the last great unknown."

"Really?" She sounded almost excited, almost happy. Her pulse came back down some more.

"Yeah, everyone." I nodded and smiled. "We just mostly learn not to think about it to much. It makes your brains leak out your ears, like thinking over time travel paradoxes."

"Hmmm…" she turned her nose up and brought the first finger of her free hand up to her lips. Her eyes unfocussed slightly. The skin on the back of her neck grew warm as her body cooled its processors.

"It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to freeze up sometimes." I spoke calmly, encouragingly, "You'll just have to do what every soldier does."

"What's that?" We both leaned back again and she completely relaxed into my chest.

I replied earnestly, "Learn to think your way through it. And keep on going. Continue the mission."

"Oh. Thanks." She leaned up, moved her face toward mine. I tactfully turned away and looked toward the smashed table.

"Maybe when you nap, you should lie down and paralyze yourself until you regain full consciousness. That's what a fully organic human's own body will do in REM sleep. Prevents sleep walking, sleep talking, whatever."

"Okay," she said slowly uncertainly. "I don't have a bed in my room. Can I go with you to yours?"

Me

"Part of me would love that. Another part of is scared of what Sarah and Derek would do if they found us like that."

Cameron

"You wouldn't…"

Me

"Maybe, if you wanted to…I don't know. I turn eighteen in a couple of months, but I really don't know if I'm ready for that."

Cameron

"What do you mean? The football team and the pep-squad have been going at like rabbits since our sophomore year."

Me

"Love-making is different that just fraking. I've read that it's an emotionally and spiritually transcendent experience. And I'm way too close to you to just frak you. Besides there's the whole 'fraternal twins' cover story."

"John, you dear sweet man." Cameron stretched out on the couch and snuggled against me.

Stop. Fantasizing. About. The Android. I took a deep breath. "Cameron, I will absolutely stay with you. There is no place in the world I'd rather be."

Cameron

"Not even with Cheri, your Chemistry lab chick?"

Me

"Be serious. She's an acquaintance, just a chick I talk to at school. You're…"

Cameron

"I'm what, John?"

Me

"I can't put it into words, but what ever it is that we are; it's way, WAY more than just acquaintances."

We were still holding our right hands. She turned a quarter turn toward me. Her left hand reached up to rub my cheeks. The she patted my thigh and said, "Are you glad I'm sitting here or is that a roll of quarters in your pocket?" Her left hand gently slid up my abs to my pecks and stopped over my heart.

"Um, yeah." Ooops. Where's my blood when I need it in my brain? Oh deliver me from this wretched body of flesh. "I'll just be going to get pillows and a blanket and pour a pitcher of ice water over meself."

Cameron moved up and turned her face to mine and gave me a peck on the lips that felt absolutely celestial. I kissed back. There was more passion in that peck than the whole football team and pom-squad on Friday night after a home-field victory. God in Heaven could it get any better than this, with a fully organic woman? She giggled. We stood.

"You're going to have to let me have my hand." I tugged it away playfully, and she held on to it giggling some more.

"My hand," I said quietly, "I need it." I pulled it away from hers very slowly, savoring the slip of her skin against mine.

I squatted to pick up my weapon and return it to its place under my bed since I was going back there anyway. As I did so, I had this crystal clear moment of déjà vu. I looked around on the floor for a cat to be stretching itself, even though I know that we don't have one. "This Kate Brewster from your dream, do we know her in the future?"

Cameron bent down and put on finger on my lips. "Let's not talk about the human girl now. This is our time. And the future is catching up to us faster than you think."

My mind put pieces together. Kate Brewster was "the human girl." I filed that away for future consideration. I wondered if I had hurt Cameron's feelings. I had known Cameron for quite a while now. I had no doubt that she had feelings. She finished her answer by pulling me back up into an embrace and kissing me again. I kissed back, my tongue explored hers. Wow.

"I'll get the ice water," she said. "You get the blankets and pillows."

Splash! I dried off. We curled up on the couch together. And we slept. Together. Cuddle bunnies. This was the first time. There would be more. She got up to patrol the house and read after a couple of hours, but returned to snuggle back up with me as the sky began to get light.

Who would ever have thought that a Terminator would be capable of something like this? Well, I never really believed she was just a Terminator anyway. I had been telling myself since we had Time Jumped to 2007 that she was somehow better, purer -- special.

Mom and Uncle Derek did have a cow the next morning.

But they didn't ban us from it.

It was almost spring of 2009.

The future was catching up to us.


End file.
